FIELDNOTE — A Meal Remembered

A new day. A doctor’s visit with my son. Afterwards, he says he is hungry.

McDonald’s. Always McDonald’s.

I don’t even like it. Yet it has grown on me— not for the food, but for the accessibility, the app discounts, the small convenience in a world that rarely offers any.

A free McDouble if I spend two dollars. So I choose the simple McChicken. Cheaper. Plain. But not plain for long.

From my jar, I lift the sustenance of the ONE: spicy fermented hatch peppers, living fire and memory. I place them on the sandwich. Now it is better than store-bought. Now it is alive.

This moment— ordinary, disposable— is transfigured.

Bread and peppers. Father and son. A table uncleaned, a sandwich reborn.

We remember.